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The year my youngest son bounded into our room at 6 a.m. crying that we had a Christmas emergency, my spirit hit an all-time low. “Mama! Daddy! Santa didn’t come! He didn’t come!” He shook our shoulders and jumped on our bed.

Oh my gosh, I thought. This is worse than a forgetful tooth fairy. This is Christmas. This is bad. Is the whole world waking up to see that Santa came?

I try to remain cheerful and optimistic during the holiday season, but it isn’t easy when you’re reminded how tough things are for so many Georgians.

I heard from a newspaper colleague in the southern part of the state last week who’s trying to raise five kids as a single mother and finally decided to request assistance through the food stamp program.

“Three weeks ago, I swallowed my pride and applied for food stamps,” she recounted. “This was VERY hard for me to do, especially because of my position in the community.”

Advent, the weeks leading up to Christmas, was particularly challenging this year because it marked the first basketball season that we’ve had four boys playing on different teams.

I know I shouldn’t drag boring old earthly matters into the spectacular of Christmas, but that’s my reality during this season of my life. Basketball season and Christmas season have joined forces for lots of fun!

So for us, Advent, preparing for Christmas, was filled with a ton of basketball games.

“When this great army of angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Come, let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened!’” –– Luke 2:18, The Living Bible

On a hill outside Jerusalem, just past the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane, is a fork in the road where travelers must choose between the Jericho Road and the Way to Bethlehem. On our family’s first day in the Holy Land several years ago, our guide made the obvious choice.

In this holiday season, may goodwill and good cheer flow abundantly from your home. May your heart overflow with charity for your fellow man. May you not put your ignorance on public display like Meldrim Thomson during the 12 Days of Christmas – or any other time of the year.

Don’t be a Merry Meldrim.

Meldrim was governor of New Hampshire in 1977 at the time of his public display of ignorance. He sent a press release to journalists asking them keep Christ in Christmas by not using Xmas in place of Christmas. He claimed Xmas is a pagan spelling, a horrible four-letter word.

As the end of 2013 approaches, it seems like a very appropriate time to publicly recognize over 600 of our citizens who are part of seven different specialized volunteer programs that we have here in Columbia County.

It takes very special people to come forward and give their personal time to go through meticulous training programs to learn various skills and then continuously provide their services at no cost to make our community and safer place to live.

As Michael Thurmond tells the story, he got a phone call one day from an attorney for the DeKalb County school board asking if he would be interested in the job of school superintendent.

The pay was good but the offer wasn’t exactly a dream job.

The DeKalb system was facing the loss of accreditation and the governor wanted to suspend the school board members. The system was mired in a financial crisis. Several former administrators were facing trial on racketeering charges.